Multi-faceted threat: STA’s Monette thrived at many positions

Friday

Jan 18, 2013 at 3:15 AM

By John Doylejdoyle@fosters.com

DOVER — To excel in high-school football in New Hampshire, it’s good to be able to play a number of positions. And no one in the Seacoast area did that better than Ryan Monette. It’s also possible no one enjoyed it more.

“I love every position,” Monette said. “I love playing the most I can play, offense, defense, special teams. I played mostly running back, but receiver was awesome. I got short passes and got my yards to help the team.”

Monette completed his senior season at St. Thomas Aquinas High School with more than 1,350 total yards of offense, 16 touchdowns and 381 return yards. That was coming off a year in which he had 1,438 rushing yards and 19 touchdowns as the Saints went undefeated and won the 2011 Division V championship. He is Foster’s Daily Democrat’s player of the year.

“We could put him anywhere on the field,” second-year St. Thomas coach Eric Cumba said. “There was a time when he’d even take snaps as quarterback. We were able to put him in many different stations, even defense.”

Cumba said Monette’s size (5-foot-9, 150 pounds) helped him find the holes and evade tacklers like no one else in the area.

“He’s a tiny guy,” Cumba said. “He’s low to the ground, his center of gravity is lower, so he doesn’t need as much energy to go side to side. His leg strength allows him to be more explosive out of those cuts. Our line wasn’t that big, but he was good at getting behind them and coming out the other end.”

Monette credited Cumba for coming up with an offense that made the most of everyone’s talents.

“He created the schemes to work with the players he had,” Monette said. “Even from last year to this year, he changed it. He got everyone involved.”

Cumba said that even with the season Monette had the year before, it was a challenge to find new ways to get his star running back the ball.

“His name was known by a lot of coaches in the state, even though we were new to Division IV,” Cumba said. “He had a slow start in that first game, but he started getting better. Then he had a big game against Laconia.”

In that game, a 47-15 rout, Monette scored three touchdowns, including a 50-yard strike on the second offensive play of the game. Monette scored again on a 1-yard run on the Saints’ next drive, and the home team held a 13-0 lead before the game was four minutes old.

“We kept using him in different places,” Cumba said. “As the year went on, we were trying to be more creative. More teams watched film and were trying to do anything they could to keep him under wraps as best as possible.”

The week after the drubbing of Laconia, a showdown of 3-0 teams at Windham (the team St. Thomas beat in the D-V title game the year before), it was a different story for the Saints. Monette caught a touchdown pass, but St. Thomas was beaten 51-16, the first loss since Monette’s sophomore season.

Monette said he and his fellow seniors took the loss hard.

“That first loss was a tragedy to the team,” Monette said. “Our streak was over. We wanted to keep that streak going. I think we thought under this coaching staff that we were an unstoppable team with an unstoppable scheme. But we were holding on to last year, and I think that hurt us.”

The Saints made the playoffs with a 6-3 record, clinching a spot in the playoffs at the last possible moment, after a dramatic 29-28 win at Hanover in the regular-season finale. Hayden Middleton drilled a 39-yard field goal as time expired for the win.

“That was one of the best games we’ve ever played in,” Monette said. “Everyone thought it was great that we came back. It wasn’t just getting into the playoffs. We came all the way back and winning it on a field goal in the last second, and then see our fans go crazy on the sidelines, will always be something to remember.”

The fun ended in the playoffs with a 42-17 loss at No. 1 Plymouth. But not before the Saints took a 10-7 lead into halftime, which Monette said was the only time Plymouth trailed all year.

“We definitely brought the momentum from the Hanover game,” Monette said. “We said that if we could come back against Hanover, we could do anything. It didn’t matter that Plymouth was undefeated. They were shocked at halftime, but they came out and pounded the ball, and that first touchdown they scored deflated us. We lost it from there.”

Monette has had his sights set on playing at the college level since his sophomore year at Saint Thomas, when he became a one-sport athlete to concentrate on football. He said he’s been recruited at every level from Division III to I, but declined to say where he has narrowed his search. He said he would like to play in a pass-oriented offense and doesn’t see himself playing running back at the next level.”

“Every player wants to play in the top division,” Monette said. “But football isn’t the only thing that’s going into the search. Whatever team that can get me into their scheme is really the team for me.”

Cumba said Monette’s success and his college football potential is a direct result of his hard work and intense physical training.

“He’s gym junkie,” Cumba said. “Every time I’m talk to him, he’s off to the gym. He’s a good student too. From an athletic and academic standpoint, he’s close to the whole package.”